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Mircea Eliade: From Magic to Myth addresses a series of topics that
have been neglected in scholarship. First and foremost, the book
looks at the early Romanian background of some of Eliade's ideas,
especially his magical universe, which took on a more mythical
nature with his arrival in the West. Other chapters deal with
Eliade's attitude toward Judaism, which is crucial for his
phenomenology of religion, and the influences of Kabbalah on his
early work. Later chapters address his association with the
Romanian extreme right movement known as the Iron Guard and the
reverberation of some of the images in the post-war Eliade as well
as with the status of Romanian culture in his eyes after World War
II. The volume concludes by assessing the impact of Eliade's
personal experiences on the manner in which he presented religion.
The book will be useful in classes in the history of religion and
the history of Eastern European intellectuals.
Ascensions on high took many forms in Jewish mysticism and they
permeated most of its history from its inception until Hasidism.
The book surveys the various categories, with an emphasis on the
architectural images of the ascent, like the resort to images of
pillars, lines, and ladders. After surveying the variety of
scholarly approaches to religion, the author also offers what he
proposes as an eclectic approach, and a perspectivist one. The
latter recommends to examine religious phenomena from a variety of
perspectives. The author investigates the specific issue of the
pillar in Jewish mysticism by comparing it to the archaic resort to
pillars recurring in rural societies. Given the fact that the
ascent of the soul and pillars constituted the concerns of two main
Romanian scholars of religion, Ioan P. Culianu and Mircea Eliade,
Idel resorts to their views, and in the Concluding Remarks analyzes
the emergence of Eliade's vision of Judaism on the basis of
neglected sources.
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This volume addresses the complex topic of the preeminent status of
the divine feminine power, to be referred also as Female, within
the theosophical structures of many important Kabbalists, Sabbatean
believers, and Hasidic masters. This privileged status is part of a
much broader vision of the Female as stemming from a very high root
within the divine world, then She was emanated and constitutes the
tenth, lower divine power, and even in this lower state She is
sometime conceived of governing this world and as equal to the
divine Male. Finally, She is conceived of as returning to Her
original place in special moments, the days of Sabbath, the Jewish
Holidays or in the eschatological era. Her special dignity is
sometime related to Her being the telos of creation, and as the
first entity that emerged in the divine thought, which has been
later on generated. In some cases, an uroboric theosophy links the
Female Malkhut, directly to the first divine power, Keter. The
author points to the possible impact of some of the Kabbalistic
discussions on conceptualizations of the feminine in the
Renaissance period.
This book focuses on Abraham Abulafia's esoteric thought in
relation to Maimonides, Maimonideans, and Islamic thought in the
line of Leo Strauss' theory of the history of philosophy. A survey
of Abulafia's sources leads into an analysis of the esoteric
meaning on the famous parable of the three rings, considering also
the possible connection between this parable, which Abdulafia
inserted into a book dedicated to his student, the 13th century
rabbi Nathan the wise, and the Lessing's Play "Nathan the Wise."
The book also examines Abulafia's universalistic understanding of
the nature of the Bible, the Hebrew language, and the people of
Israel (or the Sinaic revelation). The universal aspects of
Abulafia's thought have been put in relief against the more
widespread Kabbalistic views which are predominantly
particularistic. A number of texts have also been identified here
for the first time as authored by Abulafia.
This volume addresses the complex topic of the preeminent status of
the divine feminine power, to be referred also as Female, within
the theosophical structures of many important Kabbalists, Sabbatean
believers, and Hasidic masters. This privileged status is part of a
much broader vision of the Female as stemming from a very high root
within the divine world, then She was emanated and constitutes the
tenth, lower divine power, and even in this lower state She is
sometime conceived of governing this world and as equal to the
divine Male. Finally, She is conceived of as returning to Her
original place in special moments, the days of Sabbath, the Jewish
Holidays or in the eschatological era. Her special dignity is
sometime related to Her being the telos of creation, and as the
first entity that emerged in the divine thought, which has been
later on generated. In some cases, an uroboric theosophy links the
Female Malkhut, directly to the first divine power, Keter. The
author points to the possible impact of some of the Kabbalistic
discussions on conceptualizations of the feminine in the
Renaissance period.
Mircea Eliade: From Magic to Myth addresses a series of topics that
have been neglected in scholarship. First and foremost, the book
looks at the early Romanian background of some of Eliade's ideas,
especially his magical universe, which took on a more mythical
nature with his arrival in the West. Other chapters deal with
Eliade's attitude toward Judaism, which is crucial for his
phenomenology of religion, and the influences of Kabbalah on his
early work. Later chapters address his association with the
Romanian extreme right movement known as the Iron Guard and the
reverberation of some of the images in the post-war Eliade as well
as with the status of Romanian culture in his eyes after World War
II. The volume concludes by assessing the impact of Eliade's
personal experiences on the manner in which he presented religion.
The book will be useful in classes in the history of religion and
the history of Eastern European intellectuals.
There emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a new
Jewish elite, notes Moshe Idel, no longer made up of prophets,
priests, kings, or rabbis but of intellectuals and academicians
working in secular universities or writing for an audience not
defined by any one set of religious beliefs. In Old Worlds, New
Mirrors Idel turns his gaze on figures as diverse as Walter
Benjamin and Jacques Derrida, Franz Kafka and Franz Rosenzweig,
Arnaldo Momigliano and Paul Celan, Abraham Heschel and George
Steiner to reflect on their relationships to Judaism in a
cosmopolitan, mostly European, context. Idel—himself one of the
world's most eminent scholars of Jewish mysticism—focuses in
particular on the mystical aspects of his subjects' writings.
Avoiding all attempts to discern anything like a single "essence of
Judaism" in their works, he nevertheless maintains a sustained
effort to illumine especially the Kabbalistic and Hasidic strains
of thought these figures would have derived from earlier Jewish
sources. Looming large throughout is Gershom Scholem, the thinker
who played such a crucial role in establishing the study of
Kabbalah as a modern academic discipline and whose influence
pervades Idel's own work; indeed, the author observes, much of the
book may be seen as a mirror held up to reflect on the broader
reception of Scholem's thought.
Jewish Magic and Superstition A Study in Folk Religion Joshua
Trachtenberg. Foreword by Moshe Idel Alongside the formal
development of Judaism from the eleventh through the sixteenth
centuries, a robust Jewish folk religion flourished--ideas and
practices that never met with wholehearted approval by religious
leaders yet enjoyed such wide popularity that they could not be
altogether excluded from the religion. According to Joshua
Trachtenberg, it is not possible truly to understand the experience
and history of the Jewish people without attempting to recover
their folklife and beliefs from centuries past. Jewish Magic and
Superstition is a masterful and utterly fascinating exploration of
religious forms that have all but disappeared yet persist in the
imagination. The volume begins with legends of Jewish sorcery and
proceeds to discuss beliefs about the evil eye, spirits of the
dead, powers of good, the famous legend of the golem, procedures
for casting spells, the use of gems and amulets, how to battle
spirits, the ritual of circumcision, herbal folk remedies, fortune
telling, astrology, and the interpretation of dreams. First
published more than sixty years ago, Trachtenberg's study remains
the foundational scholarship on magical practices in the Jewish
world and offers an understanding of folk beliefs that expressed
most eloquently the everyday religion of the Jewish people. Joshua
Trachtenberg (1904-59) served in the American rabbinate for nearly
three decades. He is the author of The Devil and the Jews. Moshe
Idel is Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem. His numerous publications include Kabbalah: New
Perspectives, Messianic Mystics and Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and
Magic. He received the Israel Prize for excellence in the field of
Jewish philosophy in 1999. 2004 392 pages 6 x 9 illus. ISBN
978-0-8122-1862-6 Paper $24.95s 16.50 World Rights Religion,
Anthropology Short copy: A classic treatise, available now for the
first time in paperback, on the folk beliefs of the Jews, with a
new introduction by arguably the most important contemporary
scholar of Jewish mysticism.
This book provides impressive dossier on the phenomenon of
Saturnism, offering a new interpretation of aspects of Judaism,
including the emergence of Sabbateanism. This book explores the
phenomenon of Saturnism, namely the belief that the planet Saturn,
as described by ancient astrology, influenced Jews, reverberating
into Jewish life. Taking into consideration the astrological
aspects of Judaism, Moshe Idel demonstrates that they were
instrumental in the conviction that Sabbatei Tzevei, the
mid-17th-century messianic figure in Rabbinic Judaism, was indeed
the Messiah. Offering a new approach to the study of this
mass-movement known as Sabbateanism, Idel also explores the
possible impact of astrology on the understanding of Sabbath as
related to sorcery and thus to the concept of the encounter of
witches in the late 14th and early 15th century. This book further
analyzes aspects of 20th-century scholarship and thought influenced
by Saturnism, particularly lingering themes in the works of Gershom
Scholem and seminal figure Walter Benjamin. "The Robert and Arlene
Kogod Library of Judaic Studies" publishes new research which
provides new directions for modern Jewish thought and life and
which serves to enhance the quality of dialogue between classical
sources and the modern world. This book series reflects the mission
of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a pluralistic research and
leadership institute, at the forefront of Jewish thought and
education. It empowers scholars, rabbis, educators and layleaders
to develop new and diverse voices within the tradition, laying
foundations for the future of Jewish life in Israel and around the
world.
While many aspects of Sonship have been analyzed in books on
Judaism, this book constitutes the first attempt to address the
category of Sonship in Jewish mystical literature as a whole - a
category much more vast than ever imagined. Idel's aim is to point
out the many instances where Jewish thinkers, especially the
mystics among them, resorted to concepts of Sonship and their
conceptual backgrounds, and thus to show the existence of a wide
variety of understandings of hypostatic sons in Judaism. By this
survey, not only can the mystical forms of Sonship in Judaism be
better understood, but the concept of Sonship in religion in
general can also be enriched. "The Kogod Library of Judaic Studies"
aims to publish new research in all areas of Judaic studies with
the potential to both enrich and deepen the understanding of Jewish
culture and history and to influence and mould Jewish life and
philosophy. The series reflects the existence of plural Jewish
identities and streams involved in a lively and continuous
multi-vocal religious discourse, and in creating a cultural mosaic.
While many aspects of Sonship have been analyzed in books on
Judaism, this book constitutes the first attempt to address the
category of Sonship in Jewish mystical literature as a whole - a
category much more vast than ever imagined. Idel's aim is to point
out the many instances where Jewish thinkers, especially the
mystics among them, resorted to concepts of Sonship and their
conceptual backgrounds, and thus to show the existence of a wide
variety of understandings of hypostatic sons in Judaism. By this
survey, not only can the mystical forms of Sonship in Judaism be
better understood, but the concept of Sonship in religion in
general can also be enriched. "The Kogod Library of Judaic Studies"
aims to publish new research in all areas of Judaic studies with
the potential to both enrich and deepen the understanding of Jewish
culture and history and to influence and mould Jewish life and
philosophy. The series reflects the existence of plural Jewish
identities and streams involved in a lively and continuous
multi-vocal religious discourse, and in creating a cultural mosaic.
"Inventing the Jew" follows the evolution of stereotypes of Jews
from the level of traditional Romanian and other Central-East
European cultures (their legends, fairy tales, ballads, carols,
anecdotes, superstitions, and iconographic representations) to that
of "high" cultures (including literature, essays, journalism, and
sociopolitical writings), showing how motifs specific to "folkloric
antisemitism" migrated to "intellectual antisemitism." This
comparative perspective also highlights how the images of Jews have
differed from that of other "strangers" such as Hungarians,
Germans, Roma, Turks, Armenians, and Greeks. The gap between the
conception of the "imaginary Jew" and the "real Jew" is a cultural
distance that differs over time and place, here seen through the
lens of cultural anthropology.
Stereotypes of the "generic Jew" were not exclusively negative,
and are described in five chapters depicting physical,
occupational, moral and intellectual, mythical and magical, and
religious portraits of "the Jew."
Mystics who have spoken of their union with God have come under
suspicion in all three major religious traditions, sometimes to the
point of condemnation and execution in the case of Christianity and
Islam. Nevertheless, in all three religions the tradition of unio
mystica is deep and long. Many of the spiritual giants of these
three faiths have seen the attainment of mystical union as the
heart of their beliefs and practices. Despite its importance,
mystical union has rarely been investigated in itself, apart from
the wider study of mysticism, and even more rarely from the aspect
of comparative studies, especially those based upon broad and
expert knowledge of the inner life of the three related
monotheistic faiths. This text brings together essays that equally
explore the broader idea of unio mystica as well as the mystic
traditions within each religion.
In this original study, Moshe Idel, an eminent scholar of Jewish
mysticism and thought, and the cognitive neuroscientist and
neurologist Shahar Arzy combine their considerable expertise to
explore the mysteries of the Kabbalah from an entirely new
perspective: that of the human brain. In lieu of the theological,
sociological, and psychoanalytic approaches that have generally
dominated the study of ecstatic mystical experiences, the authors
endeavor to decode the brain mechanisms underlying these phenomena.
Arzy and Idel analyze first-person descriptions to explore the
Kabbalistic techniques employed by most prominent Jewish mystics to
effect bodily reduplications, dissociations, and other phenomena,
and compare them with recent neurological observations and
modern-day laboratory experiments. The resultant study offers
readers a scientific, more brain-based understanding of how
ecstatic Kabbalists achieved their most precious mystical
experiences. The study further demonstrates how these Kabbalists
have long functioned as pioneering investigators of the human self.
Tis title provides impressive dossier on the phenomenon of
Saturnism, offering a new interpretation of aspects of Judaism,
including the emergence of Sabbateanism. This book explores the
phenomenon of Saturnism, namely the belief that the planet Saturn,
as described by ancient astrology, influenced Jews, reverberating
into Jewish life. Taking into consideration the astrological
aspects of Judaism, Moshe Idel demonstrates that they were
instrumental in the conviction that Sabbatei Tzevei, the
mid-17th-century messianic figure in Rabbinic Judaism, was indeed
the Messiah. Offering a new approach to the study of this
mass-movement known as Sabbateanism, Idel also explores the
possible impact of astrology on the understanding of Sabbath as
related to sorcery and thus to the concept of the encounter of
witches in the late 14th and early 15th century. This book further
analyzes aspects of 20th-century scholarship and thought influenced
by Saturnism, particularly lingering themes in the works of Gershom
Scholem and seminal figure Walter Benjamin. "The Robert and Arlene
Kogod Library of Judaic Studies" publishes new research which
provides new directions for modern Jewish thought and life and
which serves to enhance the quality of dialogue between classical
sources and the modern world. This book series reflects the mission
of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a pluralistic research and
leadership institute, at the forefront of Jewish thought and
education. It empowers scholars, rabbis, educators and layleaders
to develop new and diverse voices within the tradition, laying
foundations for the future of Jewish life in Israel and around the
world.
This sweeping survey of the history of Kabbalah in Italy represents
a major contribution from one of the world's foremost Kabbalah
scholars. The first to focus attention on a specific center of
Kabbalah, Moshe Idel charts the ways that Kabbalistic thought and
literature developed in Italy and how its unique geographical
situation facilitated the arrival of both Spanish and Byzantine
Kabbalah.
Idel analyzes the work of three major Kabbalists--Abraham Abulafia,
Menahem Recanati, and Yohanan Alemanno--who represent diverse
schools of thought: the ecstatic, the theosophical-theurgical, and
the astromagical. Directing special attention to the interactions
and tensions among these forms of Jewish Kabbalah and the nascent
Christian Kabbalah, Idel brings to light the rich history of
Kabbalah in Italy and the powerful influence of this important
center on the emergence of Christian Kabbalah and European
occultism in general.
In this book, the world’s foremost scholar of Kabbalah explores
the understanding of erotic love in Jewish mystical thought.
Encompassing Jewish mystical literatures from those of late
antiquity to works of Polish Hasidism, Moshe Idel highlights the
diversity of Kabbalistic views on eros and distinguishes between
the major forms of eroticism. The author traces the main
developments of a religious formula that reflects the union between
a masculine divine attribute and a feminine divine attribute, and
he asks why such an “erotic formula” was incorporated into the
Jewish prayer book. Idel shows how Kabbalistic literature was
influenced not only by rabbinic literature but also by Greek
thought that helped introduce a wider understanding of eros.
Addressing topics ranging from cosmic eros and androgyneity to the
affinity between C. J. Jung and Kabbalah to feminist thought,
Idel’s deeply learned study will be of consuming interest to
scholars of religion, Judaism, and feminism.
In this wide-ranging discussion of Kabbalah-from the mystical
trends of medieval Judaism to modern Hasidism-one of the world's
foremost scholars considers different visions of the nature of the
sacred text and of the methods to interpret it. Moshe Idel takes as
a starting point the fact that the postbiblical Jewish world lost
its geographical center with the destruction of the temple and so
was left with a textual center, the Holy Book. Idel argues that a
text-oriented religion produced language-centered forms of
mysticism. Against this background, the author demonstrates how
various Jewish mystics amplified the content of the Scriptures so
as to include everything: the world, or God, for example. Thus the
text becomes a major realm for contemplation, and the
interpretation of the text frequently becomes an encounter with the
deepest realms of reality. Idel delineates the particular
hermeneutics belonging to Jewish mysticism, investigates the
progressive filling of the text with secrets and hidden levels of
meaning, and considers in detail the various interpretive
strategies needed to decodify the arcane dimensions of the text.
In this stimulating book, one of the world's leading scholars of
Jewish thought examines the long tradition of Jewish messianism and
mystical experience. Moshe Idel calls upon his profound knowledge
of ancient and medieval texts and of Jewish, Christian, Islamic,
and Eastern sources to uncover new perspectives on the nature and
development of Jewish messianism. He shows that, contrary to
Gershom Scholem's view that mysticism and messianism are
incompatible religious tendencies, they are in fact closely related
spiritual phenomena. Messianism regularly emerges from mystical
experiences, Idel contends. Exploring the interplay of Jewish
messianism and mysticism from the twelfth through the eighteenth
centuries, the book looks closely at pivotal figures and movements,
including Abraham Abulafia, Sabbatai Sevi, and hasidism. Idel
discerns three types of messianism-theosophical-theurgical,
ecstatic, and talismanic-and through these demonstrates that
Kabbalah, from the very beginning, was messianically oriented. He
counters the common belief that messianism typically arises as a
response to such calamities as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain
in 1492 and shows that messiahs often gain great popularity in
times of political tranquility. Idel also finds that Jewish
messianic and mystical experience bears a much greater resemblance
to Christian messianism than has been recognized before.
In this prizewinning new interpretation of Jewish mysticism, Moshe
Idel emphasizes the need for a comparative and phenomenological
approach to Kabbalah and its position in the history of religion.
Idel provides fresh insights into the origins of Jewish mysticism,
the relation between mystical and historical experience, and the
impact of Jewish mysticism on western civilization. "Idel's book is
studded with major insights, and innovative approaches to the
entire history of Judaism, and mastery of it will be essential for
all serious students of Jewish thought."-Arthur Green, New York
Times Book Review "Moshe Idel's original, scholarly, and
stimulating study of Kabbalah contains the promise of a
masterwork."-Elie Wiesel "Moshe Idel's book can help the
nonspecialized reader to reconsider the whole of Kabbalistic
tradition in comparison with many aspects of contemporary
thought."-Umberto Eco "There can be no dispute about the importance
and originality of Idel's work. Offering a wealth of complementary
insights to Gershom Scholem and his school, it will command a great
deal of attention and serious discussion."-Alexander Altmann
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